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This Valentines Day, it’s time to dump the fossil fuel industry.

This Friday, as part of People & Planet’s national Go Green Week, students up and down the country are demanding that their universities divest from fossil fuels.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, we’re asking UEA to dump the fossil fuel industry, reiterating our position that funding the companies doing most to climate change is not acceptable, an act inconsistent with the university’s own environmental policy and contradictory to the interests of students, staff and wider society.

To mark the occasion, we are releasing a detailed ten page report setting out the case for divestment at UEA, which will be publicly available on our new blog, alongside a link to our petition, where we are aiming to hit one thousand signatories in the next few days in a concerted push to make UEA reconsider its rejection of our divestment proposals. There will also be a photo petition launching in the Hive. In November, Union Council passed policy 1441 – Fossil Free UEA – with an 80% majority, committing the Union to prioritising fossil fuel divestment and noting UEA’s flawed investment policy as an issue of serious student concern.

As the widespread flooding and weather disruption in recent days has made clear, climate change is happening now and already devastating lives and communities around the world. To fund an industry which has consistently sought resistance to change and lobbied against climate commitments, which intends to burn five times more CO2 than the total carbon budget to 2050 and exploit ever dirtier, riskier fossil fuel reserves, is morally reprehensible and cannot be justified.

Even while much of the science produced here at our own university is telling us we must rapidly reduce emissions, UEA’s investments in fossil fuels, totalling around £130,000, severely compromise its environmental credentials. This is an irresponsible act that should not, and will not, be tolerated by the student body.

UEA should not be perpetuating the problems it seeks to solve – it’s time to divest now.